One distant relative came up to my fiance at the family reunion last month and asked him if our wedding is against God.

Our best man's wife (who is very very very devoutly, enthusiastically Mormon) thinks our wedding is sacriligious and doesn't want to come (our reaction was "okay, that's fine, if you don't want to come then don't) - but she decided that she's coming anyway "even though I won't like it and I won't have fun" (I think she just wants to keep an eye on her husband ::rolls eyes::).

When I told my fiance's 23-year-old cousin about the FSM she was absolutely horrified. She's only been back from her mission in the Phillipines for 8 months and her father is a bishop so that does help explain the reaction.

Lots of Brandon's family is going to have a hard time wtih this. That kind of makes it more fun :) Luckily his family absolutely love loves LOVES weddings and they've been asking us when we're going to get married for the longest time, and they seem to like me...so those 3 things seem to be helping :)

Luckily Brandon's mom is totally on board, she's even buying one of her grandsons a pirate sword to wear just for the wedding. :)

I think that most of the family is looking at it as a pirate-themed wedding, not as an actual religious wedding.

The magic phrase you have to remember when talking to people who are disappointed about your wedding arrangements is "That's a shame." It doesn't actually mean anything: it doesn't mean "Sorry", it doesn't mean "Fuck you", it doesn't mean "I will change this for you".

Case study: my wedding in 2006. My Intended's Aunt Medusa has thousands of ugly, smelly brats (well, three of them). We invited her and her husband to the ceremony, and on the invitation we stated quite clearly "RSVP - space is limited, and we need to confirm ceremony guest numbers before we can invite evening guests." Cue the hideous bag berating me in the supermarket for not inviting her pustulent progeny to the wedding. I pointed out to her that we asked her to RSVP, so that we could send out evening invites and maybe upgrade a few people to ceremony invites once we had final numbers.

"Well it's too late now isn't it?" she spat from her venomous, snaggle-toothed maw, obviously expecting me to say "No, no, bring your ungrateful mistakes with you, I retract everything I've ever said to you, and I'll even start liking the Pope." Instead I said "That's a shame", and got on with my shopping. She couldn't work out if she had been offended or not, but she did not come to our wedding, and the day was much better for it.

Another great tip to get people you feel obliged to invite but don't want to is the insult-invitation combo punch. Hand over the invitation and say "Will you be bringing someone else as a plus one, or are you too fat and ugly to be attractive to another human being?", or else "You've lost so much weight! You look like a crack whore!" Works every time...

"I don't mean to sound bitter, cynical or cruel; but I am, so that's how it comes out." ~ Bill Hicks."To argue with a person who has renounced reason is like administering medicine to the dead." ~ Thomas Paine."One should not believe everything one reads on the internet." ~ Abraham Lincoln."If you're making a political point wearing a balaclava, you're a c***. It was true for the IRA and it's true now." ~ daftbeaker.

Hmmm, an interesting question. Then can my fianceé and I both serve as ministers (we're both ordained by the ULC mind you) at our wedding for each other? That shouldn't be too complex to sort out, right? :D

OK, so what with all the changes in the law following the Equality Act (2010), and bringing the rest of the legislation into line with it, Scotland is having a Consultation on Marriage. The biggie is same-sex marriage, and how do we give same-sex marriage the same legal and social status as opposite-sex marriage? But in the process of pussyfooting around the churches, they have created a 'new' type of marriage.

Currently we have: Religious marriage (man and woman in church, or pretty much anywhere else, married by a clergyman)Civil marriage (man and woman in registry office, married by a registrar)Civil partnership (man and man, or woman and woman, in a registry office, married by a registrar)

There has been an exception since 2005: Humanist celebrants have been able to marry couples in 'Religious ceremonies' but without the whole religion bit attached (my wife and I got married in 2006 in a Humanist 'Religious' ceremony. There was no mention of any deities). Now they look like creating a fourth type of ceremony, a 'Belief marriage', which would allow the Humanists and other organisations which do not own churches to carry out their own ceremonies.

The Free Church of Scotland objects to this on the grounds that it would allow Jedis to marry. Or Flat-Earthers. Or Pastafarians...

I have already responded to the consultation as an Individual, there is also an option to respond as part of an Organisation. I will need to do a little digging around to see what the current definition of an Organisation is, but I definitely think that the CotFSM should respond to this consultation.

"I don't mean to sound bitter, cynical or cruel; but I am, so that's how it comes out." ~ Bill Hicks."To argue with a person who has renounced reason is like administering medicine to the dead." ~ Thomas Paine."One should not believe everything one reads on the internet." ~ Abraham Lincoln."If you're making a political point wearing a balaclava, you're a c***. It was true for the IRA and it's true now." ~ daftbeaker.

Cap'n Tedward wrote:Okay, but are all three of those types of weddings on the same legal level? Do civil arrangements have the same visiting rights, tax breaks, etc as the religious ones?

Yes, pretty much. In terms of property rights they are identical. The tax breaks are negligible in the UK these days - I think if you are both working there is no point in being 'married for tax purposes'. The tax breaks about having kids are about the number and age of kids, not the marital status of the parents.

The only difference at the moment is that same-sex couples can only have the 'second-tier' civil partnership, which has to be done in the registry office. I've been to gay weddings in great big halls and venues with string quartets and choirs, hundreds of guests, but that is officially an affirmation of the vows they've already made at the registry office. This allows the big ceremony to actually be the big ceremony. And I think we need to be in there.

"I don't mean to sound bitter, cynical or cruel; but I am, so that's how it comes out." ~ Bill Hicks."To argue with a person who has renounced reason is like administering medicine to the dead." ~ Thomas Paine."One should not believe everything one reads on the internet." ~ Abraham Lincoln."If you're making a political point wearing a balaclava, you're a c***. It was true for the IRA and it's true now." ~ daftbeaker.